A year from now, this day — July 20, 2020 — could be viewed retrospectively as a defining moment in setting Kansas City on a path toward a fresh and more enlightened law enforcement system in Kansas City, Missouri.
That’s because today the community’s most enduring voice for the public good came out powerfully and unequivocally in favor of replacing Police Chief Rick Smith and getting rid of a police oversight system that has prevented Kansas City from having a responsive and forward-looking police force for decades.
I’m speaking about the lead editorial in today’s Kansas City Star.
After inching its way, week by week, toward a definitive position, The Star’s editorial board today spoke forcefully and unequivocally:
“(Rick) Smith is…out of last chances. For the good of the city, he must step down. His successor must come from outside the department, or his replacement will too likely offer more of the same.
“Local control is a must, too. Boss Pendergast has been dead for 75 years, and the state oversight that his town’s corruption necessitated in another century is no reason for Kansas City to remain the only major city in the country without any real say in how its police department is run.”
Those are unequivocal words this rattled and shaken community — like many other communities — has needed to hear from its almost 140-year-old newspaper, which remains, despite the newspaper industry’s constriction, an institution dedicated to serving this community and providing clear guidance to its residents.
I’m not going to detail all the excellent points contained in this 1,000-plus-word editorial, written by Melinda Henneberger, because I want to look ahead. But I urge you to read it. If you don’t have a subscription, go out and buy the paper; the editorial alone is worth your time and money.
Just know this is a pivotal point in the long-running controversy over the state of policing in Kansas City.
I believe this is the tipping point for Rick Smith. I think he’ll be gone by year’s end, and maybe much sooner.
He is an “old-school” chief, who has always been stained by the conviction that the police are always right and the people the police are stopping, arresting and sometimes shooting and killing are always in the wrong.
That is not the kind of chief these troubled times call for.
Gwen Grant of the Urban League
I had a long conversation this morning with Gwen Grant, longtime president of the Urban League of Kansas City, one of the first civil rights organizations to call for Smith’s ouster. (Other significant organizations that have done so are the Kansas City branch of the NAACP, MORE2 and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.)
I wanted to hear her views about what she thought Kansas City needs in the next chief of police, and here’s what she said…
“We need to conduct a nationwide search to find a chief that is open to and experienced in progressive policing practices…based in accountability and transparency and respect for the communities they serve. (We need) a chief that is a change agent, who has some experience in leading change and who will be able to come in here and build relationships in the community as well as among the rank and file; someone who knows how to change a culture that right now certainly reflects the outdated command-and-control, militaristic policing style of Chief Smith.
“The next chief has to stand up against the F.O.P. — we know the F.O.P. is a barrier — and it’s going to take a strong chief and a strong community to stand down that F.O.P.
“The next chief has to be a leader that is committed, that knows how to build collaborative relationships. The next chief must respect the humanity of black people. That’s what’s important.”
Those are strong, inspiring and challenging words. They lay out a tall order for what Kansas City should aim for in its next chief.
But will Kansas City be able to recruit a candidate capable of meeting such lofty criteria? A chief capable of changing the existing hidebound, we-can-do-no-wrong culture?
Grant believes it’s possible. “There’s somebody out there,” she said.
**
The next step in getting a new chief will be the most difficult: convincing three of the five members of the Board of Police Commissioners to admit it’s time for Smith to go.
It will be very difficult primarily because we are stuck with an irrational system of police governance.
To frame the irrationality succinctly: We have a Republican-dominated police board, with four commissioners appointed by two terrible Republican governors (Eric Greitens and Mike Parson) in charge of a massive law enforcement organization in a predominantly Democratic city with a substantial Black population.
Police Board Chairman Don Wagner
The board consists of two white males (multimillionaire chairman Don Wagner and highway-patrol-officer-turned-lawyer Nathan Garrett); a white woman (lawyer Cathy Dean); a Black minister (Mark Tolbert); and Mayor Quinton Lucas, the only board member not appointed by the governor.
I said it would be difficult to get three of five votes to either push Smith out or force him to resign. But not impossible.
The key will be Lucas, who, for the excellent leadership he demonstrated on the streets during the George-Floyd-related protests, has been AWOL on the obvious need to replace Smith and weak-kneed on local control.
Regarding local control, Lucas once told demonstrators he was with them, but he has refused to follow up and assume the mantle of leadership. Instead, he has taken the very incremental step of calling for a local, preferential election to gauge public sentiment.
Regarding Chief Smith, Lucas has been even more spineless, owing primarily to the fact he’s deeply indebted to the Lodge 99 of the F.O.P., which supported him in last year’s election and helped him defeat then-Councilwoman Jolie Justus, who went into the race a big favorite.
…Gwen Grant told me today Lucas has privately told her and others Smith needs to be replaced and that he (Lucas) and Tolbert would vote to remove Smith but the other three commissioners are standing in the way.
But publicly, Grant noted, “we hear him (Lucas) singing the praises of the chief, and so we have no idea where he really stands.”
Last week, in a virtual meeting Lucas held with Grant and other civil rights leaders leaders on the issue of local control, Grant said at one point she turned the discussion toward Smith and challenged Lucas to force the police board to confront the matter head on.
“Frankly,” she said, “I think the mayor should make the motion and let the votes fall where they may. That will demonstrate where he really stands.”
Ball is in your court, Mayor, where it’s always been.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Jimmy, please tell us readers where you find support for your claim that local control is better than state control? Something we could all read and ponder. Something concrete.
Hey, Jim, what is more important in the value and credentials of a police board commissioner: the governor who appointed the member or the resume and professional experience of the member him/herself? Readers can check out both at KCPD.org, then look for link to the police board.
You cannot be serious (regarding your first question). How about the obvious? Many cities — among them Atlanta, Minneapolis, Louisville, D.C., NYC, LA, Seattle and Sacramento — have been moving on significant reforms, such as firing old-school chiefs, holding police more accountable and adopting “duty to intervene” policies.
What reforms or changes are on the horizon in Kansas City as a result of the calls for reform echoing far and wide? Well, we might get body cameras on the officers…But if happens, it will only be because a private foundation (DeBruce) stepped forward with a donation of $1 million, in addition to $1.5 million in other donated funds.
Other cities are much more nimble regarding police reform and change because their mayors, city councils, aldermanic boards, etc., have control of funding and management of their police departments.
…Come up from your cold, dark basement, Pages, and see the light! It’s blinding!
And now, please, step aside and make way for other commenters. (I don’t want to have to resort to the delete button.)
Jimmy, this is Bill Norton, as if you didn’t know. Your examples are anecdotes, not evidence. So far, nothing except knee-jerk political maneuvering has occurred. No results. All the cities you cited were under local control when their officers used excessive force against protestors. Local control hadn’t had much effect on cop policies until recently and the results are still in doubt. Who knows if these “reforms” are being implemented?
As for the mayor and the board and the PD, I read that Lucas and Smith and the board agreed to implement “reforms.” What’s happened with that?
The paragraph about other cities being nimble…ask St. Louis if the PD is nimble at making changes. Or any of the other cities you cited. Revisit these cities in six months and you might find evidence of success, at least some more concrete than anecdotes wishful thinking.
Are my posts preventing others from finding space? Give me a break.
Thanks for courageously unmasking yourself, Pages, uh, I mean Bill…I thought for a while I had been redirected to the tonyskansascity comments dept., where every commenter is either “anonymous” or hides behind or a “handle.”
(Readers — Like me, Bill is retired from The Star. We were contemporaries. He was a police reporter early in his career.)
The Star does not tell me what to do. Their editorial board has been out of touch with both Kansas City’s ever since the board members all moved to Johnson County. The Star is bending over for the lynch mobs of social media.
You’re off base, Chuck, when you say “all” editorial board members live in Johnson County. There are seven board members. I know for a fact that editorial page editor Colleen McCain Nelson and Melinda Henneberger, who wrote today’s editorial, live in the Brookside area.
From whitepages.com searches, it appears Toriano Porter lives in Independence and Derek Donovan in Kansas City, North.
Whitepages shows Dave Helling in Lenexa and KC Star editor Mike Fannin living in Olathe.
I have no idea where the most recent ed-page arrival, Michael Ryan, lives.
Fitz: I ReTweeted the following w/ link to your “Right On” blog post …@kcpolice & BoPC policy reform and leadership long overdue … create transparent & independent Office of Community Complaints; improve relationship w/ @jeanpetersbaker & @KCMO community; & local control. ACTION PLAN NEEDED! @QuintonLucasKC @K_J_Shields @EricWBunch @KCMOManager
Spread the word, Donovan.
Wow, I love to follow your blog when you start fires. Very interesting and makes me want to read the next edition.
It’s an out-of-control wild fire, John.
“Atlanta, Minneapolis, Louisville, D.C., NYC, LA, Seattle and Sacramento — have been moving on significant reforms” Police in Atlanta are currently staging episodes of “Blue Flu” owing to a corrupt prosecutor, himself under investigation using the PD as scapegoats. Minneapolis, up in flames, requesting $500 million in federal assistance (and wisely refused), NYC, crime skyrocketing after no bail “reforms” and Bill DeBlasio’s incompetent regime have turned the city into a Communist hellhole. Seattle, seriously, that’s your model of “reform”? D.C. Churches on fire, memorials vandalized, mobs running loose in the city. Anyplace in California now under the devastating stupidity of Gavin Newsome the state is becoming Venezuala north.
As for the Star’s editorial board, please.
I gotta think the silent majority is with me on this…Not firing the chief and not transferring control of the PD to City Hall don’t make a lick of sense.
You’ve always been a man of the people.